iPhone Tethering

There are a few solutions out there for tethering your iPhone 3G, but there’s one method that puts smiles on my face.

The software I use for tethering is iPhoneModem by Addition. It really makes the tethering process painless and incredibly easy. I’ve never used Netshare, so those users may differ on simplicity. All you need to do is download the iPhoneModem software for your Mac (Windows users have to manually set up the SOCKS proxy), run iPhoneModem on your jailbroken iPhone 3G/EDGE, and you’re good to go!

The free version runs a nag screen every few kb that halts the current connection until you’ve either enter the registration number or hit continue trial. For casual use the nag screen is bearable but after a while it gets incredibly annoying. The program really is worth the $10 though. Yeah, you can download 3proxy and set everything up manually, but this really saves you much of the hassle.

Please remember that tethering is against your AT&T contract and excessive use can lead to huge fees for data use.

Head on over to the link to check out iPhoneModem!

[Link]

Reaction and Summary to Apple’s “Let’s Rock” Event

Yesterday at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event, most of the new products and features were, for the most part, true to what was being produced at the rumor mill. Among the new things unveiled at the event were the new iPod Nano and iPod Touch revisions and iTunes 8. All-in-all the event was mediocre at best, in my opinion. I wasn’t really “wowed” at the event as I usually am with Apple Keynotes. I guess I was expecting more mention of the iPhone and the new firmware; there was about 6 seconds of talk pertaining to the new firmware, that’s it. This really shocked me as I thought this was a very important part of the event, considering that many owners of the iPhone have complained about bugs and glitches more than the “demanded” volume control on an iPod Touch (If you sense a small hint of bitterness, you are correct).

First of all, I’m glad to hear NBC has come back to the mothership and are now offering their TV shows on iTunes. Not only are they in standard definition, but now they are in high definition! In addition, you can now watch the HD content on your computer – before you could only do so on the Apple TV. I really don’t have a problem paying $3 for HD Office and Heroes.

Apple also unveiled iTunes 8, the latest iteration of the #1 music seller in the US, surpassing Wal-Mart. THe most notable features of the new iTunes is the new Grid view and Genius. Borrowing the beloved tile view of iPhoto, you can now browse your media (music, podcasts, video, etc.) in a more efficient manner. Just like in iPhoto, you can skim the artwork to view all of the albums you have for each artist. Personally, I think the best way to browse is in the traditional list view. Next, a feature that was stressed highly by Steve is Genius. When it all boils down to it, Genius is basically Pandora for iTunes and your music library. By activating Genius, your library is anonymously pushed to Apple, analyzed, and iTunes is then set up to create on-demand Genius playlists. If you have ever used iTunes Store Recommendations, then you’re already quite familiar with Genius; the same criterion used for recommendations is the core of Genius. Now, it really is easier than ever to discover new music or even re-discover music. I’ve been ripping all of my old CD’s to my library just so I can use Genius to re-discover old songs. I tip my hat to Apple on this great feature in iTunes.

Adding on to the slew of new features and changes in Apple’s music department are the new iPod Classic, Nano, and Touch revisions.

The iPod Classic really saw, what I thought was the shaft in the new feature department next to the iPhone 3G. Apple has usually sold the iPod in two flavors, thin and thick and different sizes. Now, the classic is only sold in the thin form factor with 120GB of storage. If you don’t think Apple is going to axe the Classic or at least put it to the side yet, now is when you should getting that “light bulb” realization. I used to be the guy that had to have ALL of his music on his iPod. So, of course, I had to have the biggest iPod available to do so. Apple has done a great job changing my point of view. The newer iPod lines, with more bells, whistles, and (lets face it) sex appeal all came in smaller hard disk sizes. That’s when I came to realize that I didn’t need ALL of my music, all I needed were the ones I listened to now. So now I could feel comfortable with the newer models, yet with smaller hard disk space. Honestly, this is the way it should be, unless you’re a DJ and need your whole library to mix and scratch or a huge traveler and need weeks upon weeks of music. It’s because of this that the Classic really is taking a step aside in the iPod department, in my opinion.

The new iPod Nano combines the form factor of the first and second generation Nanos with the high resolution screen of the third generation. The new Nano is the “thinnest iPod ever” evidently surpassing the iPod Touch in thinness. Following the tapered edge design of the MacBook Air and iPhone 3G, the Nano is an ovular shape, almost disappearing when looked at from the side. The outside has changed dramatically but you better bet that Apple added new things to the inside as well. The newest iteration of the Nano includes the accelerometer made famous by the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can now view in Cover Flow, look at landscape photos, and watch video by simply tilting the Nano to widescreen. Honestly though, I don’t think viewing videos and photos on the Nano is ideal but I won’t venture into that arena for this article. Sort of putting it all together is the new UI. With the new portrait orientation and screen that takes about 50% of the device, Apple has put the main menu on the first 3/4’s of the screen and a scrolling album art marquee on the last 1/4. Also, taking queues from the iPhone, the Now Playing screen shows full album art with vertically scrolling artist name/song title/album title and position/volume/rating scrubber at the bottom. Other new features of the iPod Nano include the voice recording app and the new “shake to shuffle” feature, which is quite self-explanitory.

Next, the iPod Touch has got a brand new bag. The iPod touch has followed suit (as most of Apple’s products have) by adopting the tapered edge look. For the most part, it looks like a very thin iPhone 3G. The UI has stayed the same, with only the exterior getting the facelift. There is now a volume rocker on the left side and also a built-in speaker that Steve stresses is for “casual listening.” It has the same screen as the previous generation, possibly going the same route that the new 3G screen has that Apple calls “warmer” (people have complained of a yellow-ish screen). An interesting addition is the built-in Nike+iPod receiver in the Touch. All you need is the transmitter for your shoe to enjoy the accessory, rather than have that dongle attached that you would always fear would break off. A good question came up by imfrog2002 on my live Apple Event Ustream broadcast. He asked if the older iPod Touches would be able to use the Nike+iPod app. The answer to that, as far as I know, is no. I wonder though if all they used to create that app was to utilize the accelerometer API. If this is the case, you can definitely use the app with previous generation iPod Touches and also the iPhone EDGE/3G. Also, genius is built-in although I didn’t hear anything on “shake to shuffle” which would be nice to have on the Touch and iPhone EDGE/3G. What Apple wants to do, it seems, is market this device as not only a music/video/breakfast maker (NOTE: link NSFW), but also a viable gaming device; this is very evident in their new ad, dubbing it the “Funnest iPod Ever” (someone needs to get ahold of Apple’s grammar department stat!). I’m not sure if it could be a viable competitor, but it is a great device albeit hard to control at times with the über sensitive accelerometer.

Moving on to what I thought was the crucial part of the keynote, iPhone/iPod 2.1 software. Here’s what was said, available free to current 2.0 iPod Touch owners, $20 for 1.x iPod Touch owners, fixes bugs, available Friday. That’s it… Ticked? You bet I am! Friday will tell if this 2.1 update is really a fixer. The past two updates have been horrendus, if anything making the device harder to use. I would address the new firmware as follows.

“Oh yeah! The new firmware for the iPhone 3G! New features include freezing your phone, dropping calls, keyboard lag, and even losing sounds most of the time! Not to mention you get a free headache!”

Yet, through it all, I still use the phone. As I’ve said before, this product just isn’t on par with what I consider Apple standards. I hope this update fixes most of the problems and gives me some piece. Better yet, I hope it fixes the basic function of the product, making calls. Like Chris Hardwick said, it’s like saying I have this brand new fridge that makes my dinner and holds a lot of stuff! Does it keep stuff cool? No…

And that’s the Apple event, in a nice little package just for you. What are your thoughts on the event? Throw your comments in and flame away.

Apple Let’s Rock Event: ETA 1h 43m

I’m sure you’re all tired of hearing about it, but yes, today is Apple’s “Let’s Rock” iPod event. Rumors have been flying every which way of what we can expect at this event. From elongated Nanos, to price slashes on the iPod Touch line, there’s sure to be some epic things to be said at the event. Also, the new iTunes 8 and iPhone 2.1 firmware with push notifications should be unveiled.

As far as iPhone goes, this event will either make or break Apple in my book. I’ve been plagued with many bugs on the iPhone, as you all may have read from my flood of tweets over the last few months. I’m just so disappointed because I love Apple so much. Their products are always top-notch and state-of-the-art. The iPhone though, in addition to my MobileMe mishaps, has sort of put taken off the shimmer that Apple used to have for me. I really hope the firmware update fixes at least the vast majority of my problems.

Don’t know what MY problems are? Let’s list them.

Poor Battery
Dropped Calls
Poor 3G reception
Extreme Typing Lag
Loss of SMS-In sounds
Loss of sounds period
Severe app crashing
iPhone freezing

That’s just a the ones I hope get fixed.

Sadly, I’ll be in class during the event but I’ll be sure to have the important tweets pushed to my iPhone. Let’s hope that Apple certainly “rocks” the event.

Personally, I’ll be keeping it tuned here…

iPhone EDGE/3G Tethering

If you’ve been away from your Mac lately, you probably missed this incredible gem. The guys over at [url=http://www.nullriver.com]Nullriver[/url] released an iPhone tethering app on the App Store for $10. How this got past the App Store people is beyond me. It was almost immediately yanked from the store, but not without a few people downloading it first. It looks like it just gave the whole process a simple GUI for the technologically impaired. The wireless tether works by creating a SOCKS proxy server and an Ad-Hoc Wi-FI connection to the iPhone’s EDGE/3G data.

Many people say that using the iPhone as a bluetooth modem is a feature that is desperately needed. At times I couldn’t agree more. For example, not many airports have free Wi-FI (the only one that I know of is JAX). Instead of buying a T-Mobile one-day pass or whatever service the airport provides, I’d love to just tether my iPhone and use the 3G network. As-of-late, there is no solution for this that won’t likely hike up your phone bill. I’m not sure if there is a way that AT&T can detect if the 3G connection is being used by an iPhone or computer; if there is a way, you can bet your bottom dollar that they will throw some hefty data fees on you. In reality, Mobile Safari is a true full-featured desktop browser that happens to be on a mobile platform. Therefore, could AT&T really tell the difference? Yes, maybe AT&T would see a huge spike in usage, but how do they know an iPhone 3G user didn’t just get bored and extensively browsed, watched YouTube videos, and sent/received photos?

At other times, I don’t see a need for tethering because I’m usually always around a free Wi-Fi hotspot. Whether I’m on the UF campus, one of the 50 (exaggeration) Starbucks locations in the Gainesville area, or traveling to other cities in Florida, there’s usually a hot spot I can get to. Most of the time, I don’t have a need for tethering. Two to five years ago, I wouldn’t be saying the same thing.

To put things in perspective. my hometown of [url=http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=perry,+fl&ie=UTF8&ll=30.12464,-83.581581&spn=0.066072,0.11055&z=13]Perry, FL[/url] is a little behind in the tech world. About a year ago, wireless internet and broadband connections finally became somewhat standard. In 2002, I set up a wireless network in my house. Nothing incredible, 802.11B wireless running on a 5 Mbps downstream DSL connection. I was one of the very few people in Perry with DSL, let alone with a wireless network. I think tethering would work great for towns such as my hometown. Although you would be running on the unbearable EDGE network, it would help you in a bind.

This leads us to two questions: Should the iPhone 3G be tether-able and should AT&T charge a premium for tethering? In my opinion, I think tethering should be available and AT&T should not charge a premium. Mandatory data plans have already had the $10 increase (for those of you think it isn’t much, that’s an extra $120 a year). With the unlimited $30 data plan, we should be able to tether for free.

What are your thoughts on tethering and what position should AT&T take on the issue?

iPhone 3G: Now Sans MMS!* [May Cause Discomfort!]

On a recent post, I backed up Apple’s case for not having MMS implemented on the iPhone as-of-late. I still stand behind my case, except it did cause me a little bit of grief the last two days.

I’ve recently become the uncle of a beautiful, 7 lbs. 6 oz, baby boy. born two days ago (7/23/08) It’s very exciting and I can’t wait to visit him, my sister, and brother-in-law this weekend. Thankfully, we’re in the age of sharing copious amounts of information in various ways, from email, text messaging, and even tweets. So, naturally, I ask my brother-in-law to send me a shot of the baby. I tell him that the iPhone doesn’t have picture messaging capabilities and that he could just email it to me. He told me he would email to me when they got to the house a few days later. I was in a rush (and was at work) so I agreed and told him to email it when he could. After getting some paperwork out of the way, I decided to text my sister and my brother-in-law and tell them they could email me directly from the phone. I sent a few texts explaining the process – basically start a picture message as usual and instead of a phone number in the “To:” field, just put my email address. I didn’t get a response, which makes sense as the baby had just been born 12 hours ago and they were most likely exhausted. I let it slide and called my dad later that night.

I talked to my ecstatic father, he told me that he didn’t have a picture to email but my mom had a picture on her phone. He then passed the phone to my mother and I asked her if she could email me the photo.

Before I go on, let me set a little background on my mother. My mother is filipino (which is where I get my awesome tan) and her natural dialect is Tagalog. In Tagalog, syllables and words are much shorter and, therefore, one who speaks the language has an extremely fast tongue.

Alright, picking up from where I left off. Not only does she have a very fast tongue and can talk at 120 sps (syllables per second), but add to that a frustrated feeling of messing with a gadget that isn’t working correctly. This is a recipe for a conversation disaster. Each time as I attempted to throw a solution she would repeat the problem to me and we would get in that cut-off jive. I would start something, then I’d stop to let her say something while she would stop to let me say something… a vicious circle.

Finally she handed the phone off to my brother and he explained the problem. Long story short, the message was somehow not downloading from the server so he would text my brother-in-law, get the photo, and send it to me. The next day, somewhere around noon, I received the photo.

I guess there are times where MMS would be great on the iPhone 3G, but really, I think I can live without it.

iPhone 3G – The Night, The Phone, and The Aftermath (Part Three)

This is the third and final installment of my iPhone camp out debacle

Scene: iGerard and iPhone 3G, driving on to Gainesville, FL. I gave my dad a call and thanked him for giving me his SSN so early in the morning. Then all of a sudden I hear my iPhone 2G ring. I look at it, wondering why in the world its ringing. I pick up the phone and go through the usual maneuvers. I hit the sleep/wake button then keep driving on. Then I noticed, I could call my phone number from the iPhone 3G. Also, why in the world was the old iPhone still activated? I quickly grabbed my iPhone 3G and called Kolin up. I asked him what number did he see on the screen.

Turns out it was my dad’s phone number that was showing up. Not good.

I stopped at the next exit and quickly dialed 611. Evidently, when I activated my iPhone 3G, Anwar put it under my dad’s phone number instead of my phone line. So, there’s the iPhone 3G activated on my dad’s line and my old iPhone still activated on my phone line. I got on with an AT&T representative and told her my case. Everything was going fine and I started to drive on back to Gainesville. Then, about 20 miles out and 15 minutes being on hold later, she tells me I have to drive back to the Apple Store to switch the numbers and that there is NO possible way to fix it over the phone.

I try to keep my cool, turn around, and start driving back to the Apple Store… 120 miles away. The whole way I try to call up the Apple Store to see if they can do anything without me having to drive the rest of the way. Unfortunately, no one answered the phone, which makes perfect sense considering how busy they were, and would be, for the rest of the day. After a long spat of hitting myself to stay awake and intense concentration on the road, I finally arrive in Tampa and pull into International Plaza.

I got to the Apple Store and was recognized by the security guards. I told them the situation and they escorted me to the entrance of the Apple Store, passing the whole line and, again, seeing faces wide eyed and agape. I talked to Ric, the head specialist, and told him what the AT&T representative had told me. He then went to consult the store manager and left me to wait. A few Apple Store employees, including John and TJ, asked me what I was doing back in the store. After telling them my story – the third time I had told the incredibly long story – they had a similar one to tell me (minus the purchase of an iPhone 3G on the wrong line, driving back and forth… nevermind, nothing like my story in anyway except for the grief). John told me that a few minutes after Kolin and I had left, their servers to contact AT&T had went down so, vis a vi, their POS units were useless to purchase the phones. After talking to them for a little bit, Ric came back to me and told me I had to go to the AT&T store in International Plaza to deal with it there. He told me he notified the manager and told me to head over there and they would explain what I needed to do.

I went to the AT&T store, seeing a short line, and went straight inside for the manager. Thinking back I probably should have waited in line behind the other customers, but I was already livid that I had to drive back and get bounced around between the two stores. I went inside and waited for the manager to come out of the back. He finally came out and told me, not asked but TOLD ME, to go outside and wait. I told him that Ric sent me over there to get this situation fixed. He cut me off before I could finish my sentence and said I have to wait outside and he doesn’t care about my problem right now. “There are more problems in here right now than what you’re having. What problem could you have anyway? You already have the iPhone???”

Verbatim

I was holding my tongue because this guy really had no effing clue. Many choice words and phrases came up but I calmly said, “I was told to come here and the situation would be fixed. I’ve been awake for the last 25 hours and I’d REALLY like to get mine and my father’s phone fixed ASAP.” Now, it seemed at this point the world stood still, both of us staring angrily at each other, probably wanting to rip each other’s throat out. Me, at a staggering (compared to him) 5′ 8”, towered over his 5′ 1” puny body waiting to rip him a new one. Finally he asked me, nicely this time, to step outside and wait in line.

I went outside…

After 15 minutes, the vertically challenged guy with a power trip went out to ask each customer what they needed. He finally came to me and told me that I can switch out the SIM card in my iPhone EDGE (thanks for term kpereira XD) to my iPhone 3G. My dad would then have to go to an AT&T store in Texas to get a new SIM card for his phone. He also assured me that when he does, he’ll be escorted to the desk – skipping whatever line there was for the iPhone 3G – to get a new SIM card. I really don’t know how considering I didn’t even give him the location of the store he would be going to. I switched out the SIM cards and called my dad, telling him what to do for his phone.

I walked back through the mall, still getting satisfaction as people stared at my white iPhone 3G and nifty bag, and got to the Apple Store. I thanked Ric and the rest of the staff and proceeded to leave the malll, again being escorted by security. I’m glad they did that, considering I could have been mugged for my prized possession.

I got inside my car, plotted my path in Maps, and started the drive to Gainesville.

This time, for good.

Feel free to check out my FriendFeed account for all of my iPhone 3G content from the launch. There you’ll find links to my Flickr, Youtube, Vimeo, and every other service you can find me on!

iGerard

iPhone 3G vs. Blackberry Propaganda Handouts

Okay, so I said I wouldn’t do reposts of articles but this is just bollocks!

Evidently an AT&T kiosk in a New Jersey mall has had employees hand out anti-iPhone propaganda to customers requesting the out-of-stock iPhone 3G. When a Gizmodo reader’s mother went to the Moorestown Mall in New Jersey to ask about iPhone insurance they “laughed at her face.” They they proceeded to hand out articles written against the iPhone and for the Blackberry – from sites such as Crackberry.com and Pocket PC Magazine.

The documents have the same old arguments that even iPhone users have complained about: no MMS, stereo bluetooth, user replaceable battery, video record, etc. The list seems to go on. I think on the article there was even an argument about no voice dial. I’m not too sure how many people use voice dial, but I just use my Favorites for speed dialing. Also, there IS a voice dial app in the App Store …

You know, I’m going to break down the reasons they give in the slander, one by one.

1. No removable battery
   

   This does bother me a little bit, but the battery works just fine if you know how to control your usage and utilize the on/off switch for each service (3G, WiFi, Push/Fetch, Bluetooth). Yes, there does come a time when the battery needs to be replaced, but there are some people out there who could even mess that simple task up. Also, you have to go through the trouble of buying a battery on Ebay or whatever your place of purchase may be. When you buy the battery, you have to have the correct type and match all of the specifications of the original battery. It may seem an easy task, as I said, but you could inadvertently destroy parts inside of the device or, over time, do so. The design of the iPhone would also fail if we could have a user replacable battery. The awesome part of the iPhone’s design is it’s minimalism. No doors or compartments to open (with the exception of the SIM tray that can only be opened with a paper clip) means less ways to break the iPhone. Yes we could get a “juice pack” for our iPhones, and it works just fine. Not to mention we can charge at ANY USB 2.0 port we can get to. Can Blackberry do that? In addition, I think I’d rather have an Apple tech replace the battery even if it were user-replaceable. I, personally, have had no problem with Applecare.

2. No video record / no flash
   

   Yes, there is indeed no video recording capabilities or flash. Now, to solve the former, there’s something wonderful that every iPhone comes with… APP STORE! Guess what people, the iPhone SDK has access to all of the API’s that Apple uses. That includes… THE CAMERA API!!! So, what does this mean Gerard? Well, reader, it means that someone can create an app to record video from the camera. Isn’t that nifty? Boy that SDK is pretty awesome. Now, flash is something that cannot be solved with App Store. I’m not going to say that the iPhone has the best camera, because it doesn’t, but it takes excellent indoor/outdoor photos. Usually when you use a flash, it’s because either it’s dark, or you need to flash the subject in the foreground. If you had a flash for the former, is it REALLY going to make the shot THAT much better? The answer is no. As for the latter, the camera already does a great job taking in light and focusing on the subject.

3. No Voice Dial
   

   I sort of already touched on this a little bit before I got aggravated and decided to break these arguments down. Yes, there is no voice dial but, like the solution to the last argument, there’s App Store. In the App Store there is already an app that does just that. So if you REALLY need that voice dial, you got it! Wow, isn’t the App Store just swell?

4. No Expandable Memory
   

   Okay, honestly, I think that 16GB is just fine. This is enough to fit a modest amount of music, podcasts, and some video + the slew of apps you will download from App Store. So, what if I need more room? I’d love to have that expandable memory Gerard!… No you don’t. Honestly, it won’t be as fast and efficient as the on-board memory that the iPhone has. Also, it just adds another part of the phone to be broken. Oh but wait… all of the parts stay as a whole, just like you said in the battery argument Gerard! That is right friends!

5. No MMS
   

   Honestly, MMS was cool when we weren’t sending rich text and picture messages. I’m sorry but if I want to send someone my 2 mega-pixel shot I took, I don’t want to send it through MMS, get it compressed horribly through whatever service they use, and them get some grainy, sorry excuse for a photo on their small handset. So, how did Apple solve this problem? EMAIL. It’s a smart phone, and email has never looked so good on a smart phone as it does on iPhone. kthxbai.

6. No CDMA
   

   CDMA people are complaining that it’s not on your network? Hmmm… lets see.. CDMA = North America, GSM = Worldwide. I think that solves the problem. Why pick a network that isn’t everywhere you go? On CDMA, before leaving the country you have to have a special phone and a whole mess of things have to happen. With iPhone and going overseas, you just turn off Data Roaming (for the most part)

7. No UMA
   

   Well, they do admit there will be 3rd Party apps that will allow calling through Wi-Fi (Skype or in my case Fring) but they say you won’t see it on T-Mobile or Rogers. How much of the international market is covered T-Mobile and Rogers? I believe Rogers is Canada only and T-Mobile covers part of Europe. No where in there does it say USA. Also, just because these carriers in their small markets (compared to rest of the 70+ countries iPhone 3G is going to) you shouldn’t get the iPhone? No. No. No.

8. No Stereo Bluetooth
   

   Yes, there is no A2DP on the iPhone 3G. What do you expect though? With the battery already having to power manage 3G, wi-fi, EDGE, push/fetch, the last thing it needs is to power manage stereo bluetooth. With stereo bluetooth it’s not just a quick connection for a few minutes or so, it’s a constant connection pushing audio. This would drain the battery immensely, along with 3G, Wi-Fi, etc. Yes, it is a wireless world, but how can we be wireless if the darn device doesn’t have battery?

This is only one part of the slander that the AT&T reps handed out at the NJ store. The next page is an argument on the incredible “rich” apps you can use on the Blackberry – none of which are up to par with the quality apps from App Store. Tagged on the end is also a page on why a Windows Mobile phone is better than the iPhone 3G. Skimming the article I saw a few petty excuses such as no physical keyboard (people just don’t give it a chance, best keyboard I’ve used in a smart phone), not much apps (because App Store has been open as long as windows mobile software has been out), and no BG processes (which is a double-edged sword honestly, the push notification service should solve most problems). I don’t have enough time to rant on those, but here’s my take on everything. Feel free to post your comments below.

App Store!

The iPhone 3G is an awesome phone. It now has 3G speeds and built-in GPS, nicer form factor, flush headphone jack, and better audio. A lot of people say this is the iPhone that should have come out last year. Also many say it’s not worth the buy for two extra features. While this may remain true, one overlooked factor that applies to both handsets is the amazing addition of app store.

App store really is a one of a kind way for developers to get their apps to consumers. With the 2.0 fimware update every iPhone and iPod touch has access to hundreds of apps. There are many apps out there that are free such as AIM, Pandora, Last.fm, Facebook, and Myspace. All of these apps work wonderfully and take advantage of the multi-touch user interface of iPhone.

The app store really sets the iPhone apart from other handsets, in my opinion. I’ve always worked with CDMA networks before switching over to AT&T and I have to admit, I haven’t seen anything like this. Also, the quality of the apps are far beyond anything you could get on a Blackberry, Treo, or other smartphones. I’ve used a Treo 755, Moto Q, and Blackberry Curve before and haven’t been able to get apps or an app delivery system that is up to par with App Store.

The final part that will make the apps literally untouchable by other smartphone apps is the implementation of the Push Notification Service. This service keeps the apps on iPhone from having to run in the background, therefore preserving the battery life (which by some, including me, hasn’t been that sporty with 3G). The way the push notification service works is that it keeps a constant connection to your iPhone through direct IP. A developer can push a badge, notification sound, or notification window that requires input.

I think this is a far better way than having run applications in the background and give the user a “task manager.” Although, from a power user’s point of view, a task manager isn’t’ that bad because we know what the processes are. I think it would be excellent to give the option for you to run the app in the background. I’d love to be able to listen to Pandora, AOL Radio, or Last.fm while sending a text or taking pictures, as if it were the native iPod app. We all know, though, that as soon as you hit the home button or click “view” when you receive a new text, the music stops and you can’t go back to the song you were just listening to. So, in reality, not having background processes is a double-edged sword.

So, what do you think of app store and what are your favorite apps? Feel free to post your sceenshots of you home screen. You can do a screen shot in iPhone by pressing the Home button + Sleep/Wake Button. Hope to see some cool shots from everyone!

iPhone 3G – The Night, The Phone, and The Aftermath (Part Two)

This is a second part of my three part iPhone Camp out story. Feel free to check out my twitter conversations on quotably.com and Flickr photostream to complement the story.

When I read over my first part of the series yesterday I felt like I left a few important elements out. Not anything epic, but small tidbits that really made the night worthwhile. Around the time when Scott and the high school graduate had joined the line, two Apple employees came out to talk to us – John and TJ, both specialists. TJ had talked to Kolin earlier when the security guards were giving him trouble. He offered to let him stay inside the Apple store but I think Kolin didn’t mind being outside. John talked to us and said we should get something for being the first few. I figured an iPhone day shirt wouldn’t be bad. Of course, those were for the employees only and they had to wear it for launch day. He then suggested we should get cookies. I then had a big smile on my face and happily told him I wouldn’t mind a free cookie. He laughed and him and TJ went back to the store to help close up. About 25 minutes later he came back out with two yellow bags in his hand, yellow bags that contained about a pound of mini Nestle Tollhouse cookies. He gave one bag to me and another to Kolin. We both thanked him multiple times for the cookies, at first not accepting them. I didn’t believe that he would actually buy us cookies, with his own money at that. I think I’ll send him and the rest of the Apple staff a card, they really were a great group of people.

Honestly, when I look back, the hours between 2am-5am are a complete blur. It was around this point that Kolin, Scott, sirmalloc, and I were contemplating sleeping or not. I really didn’t feel to comfortable sleeping in line and in my quite unstable chair. When I think about it now, I remember the tag saying the weight limit was 225 lbs. and lets just say I’m a little over that. I recall very little, but one moment I do remember is a security guard talking into an emergency call post in the parking lot. It was kind of odd because we could see and hear him trying to talk to it while the person on the other end would blare, “This line is for emergencies only” or something to that effect. Around this time the security guards also found it fit to take pictures of us. One claimed it was to show the condition of the sidewalk through the night and to document any shenanigans. Really though, we’re just Apple kids waiting patiently for a product, not pre-pubescent teens waiting in line for a Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers concert.

After 5am time seemed to fly by, checking our clocks every now and then at seemingly 15 minute intervals. Not only talking about our love for Apple, we all shared a few of our hobbies. Sirmalloc showed me some photos on his iPhone from his amateur photography. I really shouldn’t use the word amateur, the pictures were amazing. Of course, anything is amazing compared to my point-and-shoot madness. He was incredibly knowledgeable in the world of photography, giving me some tips and tricks to the field. I’ve always wanted to take up photography for a hobby, but haven’t found the time and money to take it up; it’s on my list of things to do.

Finally the sun had completely risen and a few Apple employees came outside with a cart full of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, coffee, and SmartWater. We all wolfed down our free doughnuts and slowly drank our desperately needed caffeine. Around 730a, the head security guard made an announcement on the procedure upon entering the mall. He then unhooked the rope in front of us and ushered us into the mall. As we went through the automatic glass doors, I felt a strong wind breeze past me. Air conditioning never felt so good, and cold! We walked all the way to the end of the roped off area, just one more section away from the roped path in front of the Apple store. We stood there for a few minutes, taking pictures of the line inside of the mall and each other (you can find these photos in my Flickr photostream).

The security guard in front of our blocked off area talked to us a little bit, still not believing that we stayed the whole night in front of the mall. He then got the signal to usher us to the roped off area in front of the Apple store. At this point it was 8:55a, the longest 5 minutes of my life. Scott, Kolin, and I started to take pictures before the gates rose in front of the Apple logo. We were basically trying to find anything to talk about to pass the 5 minutes by. A reporter from the St. Petersburg times came and interviewed Kolin, then talked to us about the iPhone 3G, trying to decide if he wanted to upgrade as well. Grabbing our attention, we could hear the Apple employees inside doing a pep talk and cheer. I looked through the gate and saw that there was a black curtain in front of the whole store. Not 15 seconds after I noticed the curtain they started taking it down. While the employees were lowering the curtain, the rest of the employees started a countdown. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… the gate rose. We were all welcomed in with clapping and smiling faces. I noticed most of the employees, as most of them talked to us throughout the night. Purchasers were directed to the left and people who wanted to demo the units were directed to the right. I did notice a few go to the right, but we camped out to buy this phone… now.

We were each given a personal shopping assistant and were then guided to a Mac. Anwar was my shopping assistant, and he couldn’t have done a better job. I’ve never had a bad experience at an Apple store, each experience better than the last. Anwar asked me if I had all of the items needed to purchase the iPhone, ID, credit card, etc. I assured him that was iReady . He grabbed my beautiful white 16GB iPhone, Dock, and mobileMe box. I took pictures of each item at the table, because I couldn’t un-box it at home. Before unboxing, we had to check eligibility by putting in all of my personal information. I’m on a family talk plan so I had to call my father to get his social security number – waking him up wasn’t the best idea considering he’s on central time. Finally the process was finished and I took out the phone – boy did it feel great. Activation was a cinch as well, easy as plugging it in via USB sync cable and I was done.

I took my phone and raised it in the air, like a trophy . I got a lot of smiles and claps. One of the Apple employees that came to talk to me through the night (I cannot remember her name) took a picture of me with my iPhone in hand, doing my classic smile and thumbs up – the pose that you can find me doing with Steve on my site’s logo. I went over to Kolin to see how his activation was doing; he was having trouble getting a hold of his parents. The shopping specialist he had told him that his parents had to be there. This turned out to be false, all Kolin had to do was get his mother’s social like I did with my father. While Kolin was getting his ducks in a row, I was talking with the St. Petersburg Times reporter about the iPhone 3G, doing some things on camera. He asked me what I use my iPhone for and how much better is it compared to the 2G model. I did a speed demonstration with 3G, just like Steve did at WWDC. It really was about 2.8x faster when loading National Geographic. After Kolin finally got everything lined up, I showed me his black 8GB iPhone and smiled – we did it. We looked around to find Scott and sirmalloc but couldn’t find them. We later found out that they were one of the first ones finished and left to avoid the rush.

Kolin and I walked to the exit, showing off our phone to the people in line behind us. We got to the sliding glass doors and one of the security guards that was with us through the night asked to see our phones and congratulated us. We shook his hand and went outside.

When we passed through the sliding glass doors, we looked at the line to find that it had almost tripled when we entered. I have to say that I breathed a sigh of relief, camping out was well worth it. When I think about it, it really wasn’t about the iPhone as much it was for the experience. I’m glad I did the camp out and met Scott and sirmalloc. Thanks to twitter and the cornucopia of social networks, we all still stay in touch. I went to my car, put my purchases in the passenger seat, and started my trip back home. As if coming full circle, I opened up Maps and planned my route home. Only this time, I have GPS and turn-by-turn directions.

(I will complete my story tomorrow in my final post. Yes, this isn’t the end. )

iPhone 3G – The Night, The Phone, and The Aftermath (Part One)

With the dust settling of the iPhone 3G launch – for me at least – it’s nice to reflect on the long, fun and strenuous sequence of events that was the iPhone 3G launch day.

I woke up at my usual time, a time that I will not disclose , and ran the usual routine. Try to accurately hit the “snooze” button on my docked iPhone 5-10 times, shower, get clothed, and check email/rss feeds/twitter (the latter I like to call my “vitals”). After that I drove over to my girlfriend’s house to take her to class, and then proceeded to the Grooveshark office for my internship.

I got to the office and set-up my MacBook and got my work for the day. The office was mostly abuzz about the new iPhone 2.0 firmware that released Thursday morning – albeit not official. One of the guys (I can’t remember his name though) showed me the Facebook app and the Pandora app and I got really excited. I then had a 8GB jailbroken iPhone so upgrading to the firmware 2.0 ran the risk of bricking my iPhone. In almost a split second I decided to remove the jailbreak, restore, then upgrade to 2.0. While waiting for the long process to complete I completed most of the tasks that were set for me, although they were really limited as the lead web developer didn’t have much for me to do other than get PHP 5 down.

When it finally finished I went on an app purchasing frenzy, although when I say purchasing I really mean clicking free, followed by install. I downloaded the aforementioned Facebook and Pandora apps, Jott and Twitterific. All of the apps worked great and were of an obvious higher quality than that of Installer.app. Throughout the day I was getting constant updates from Kolin, who was already at the store at 12PM. Kolin actually got the attention of Tampa Bay Online (TBO) and sent a reporter out there to get an interview. Jealous was I . After getting my fix of official apps, I packed up my MacBook and left the office to prepare for the long night ahead of me.

When I arrived at my apartment I got a quick shower and grabbed my WWDC shirt, khaki shorts and a pair of incredibly comfortable mesh shorts just in case. I loaded up new Maps app and plotted my route to the Tampa Apple Store – a straight shot down I-75 thankfully. I finally hit the road around 3:30P, not stopping for snacks or anything at Target like I originally planned; I needed to make up for lost time so I decided to claim my spot in line, then go to Target for food and everything else – a plan that later proved a superb choice. I finally arrived at the mall around 5:15, realizing that the whole trip really was a blur due to my daydreaming of iPhone 3G the entire way. When I think about it, I’m really thankful I got there safely through my 2 hours of incredibly divided attention. I met Kolin near the entrance of the Apple Store and we talked to a few Apple employees. Evidently Kolin was already well known at the store as mall security continually hassled him throughout the day, only to find out the Apple employees had his back (whoever says Apple employees suck definitely haven’t been to an Apple store). After perusing the Apple store pre-iPhone 3G madness, we went outside to sit on a bench and mooch off of Apple Store (although spotty) wi-fi.

For the next hour and a half it was just Kolin and I sitting on the bench talking about the gadget we were about to both enjoy. Something had occured to me while were sitting there and I was wolfing down water, where would we use the bathrooms? Before I could start calling dibbs on palm trees, Kolin pointed out that the mall had Porta-Pottys setup just for our use. It was kind of disappointing, I was hoping I could mix some Survivor-man with our campout but that just wasn’t in the cards. 7PM was the official time for the line to start outside of the mall so a security guard – who was a complete jerk with his condesending tone and demeanor – quite impolitely told us to “get off the bench and move to the roped area.” Not stooping to his level, we both agreed and politely moved ourselves and our belongings over to the roped area. This is when a few people joined in the line, the few that we would eventually talk to the whole night.

A few people had join the early line-up, including TBO.com reporter Scott Newman (different than aforementioned reporter) who covered the whole campout via iPhone and Blackberry blog posts. A few other people joined in, a recent high school graduate, a graphic designer, and a phlebotomist – all who hail from Tampa. It looked like Kolin and I were the only out-of-towners making the campout.

Our night had begun and we all stood around for a few hours talking about our love for Apple, the new iPhone 3G, and where we stood in the tech world. Before the sunset we all introduced ourselves and our Apple backgrounds. Kolin and I introduced ourselves as full-time Apple nerds and college students. Scott, other than reporting for TBO, is a programmer working for a consultant agency based out of Atlanta specializing in Python. Scott had the current iPhone, buying it the day after the big release. The graphic designer, who I will call Mr. Blonde, works for a group in Tampa and uses a Mac for his work; this is his first iPhone. For most of the night it was me, Kolin, and Scott that talked throughout the night. We had a few conversations with Mr. Blonde and a another first-time adopter, Luis.

At around 1130ish I started to think that I may need a chair for the night, as did Scott and Kolin. Luis and I drove down to the nearest Target and purchased some cheap chairs (a little too cheap in Scott’s case, more later), bug spray, and some McDonald’s. While at Target I got a tweet from Kolin saying that Bay 9 News was coming to do a report on us – awesome! When Luis and I got back I had remembered one very important thing – an extension cord for our laptops sans wi-fi. Although a little disappointment, it later proved unnecessary.

After setting up our chairs a van pulled up with the Bay 9 News logo. The cameraman interviewed both Kolin and I about the campout and the iPhone 3G. After blaring a huge light in our face and putting a huge fuzzy boom mic next to our mouth, he packed up his equipment and left – back to the long night.

A few nuisances kept us going through the night. One of which were the ants. Even though most of us had use the bug spray it had seemed futile against the wrath of the ants, which were huge I would like to add. Also, while most were asleep, the mall decided it would be a great idea to turn on the sprinklers, primarily the ones right next to us. As soon as the first sprinkler went off the line disbanded as tired Apple-heads scarmbled to get their electronics in dry areas. After the short episode with the sprinklers, we had the nice aroma of reclaimed water to smell the rest of the night. Many forgot about water runoff going down the sidewalk and were quickly reminded as they noticed their blankets or bags getting a little wet minutes later. Around 2AM a street-sweeper came by and Zamboni’d his way through the parking lot, seemlingly making more a mess than what was previously there.

Following the sprinkler and street-sweeper incidents, another programmer joined our little group, whose name escapes me but I will call sirmalloc from his Twitter handle, who specializes in Microsoft .NET and web development. He had the iPhone and was planning on upgrading later, but decided to come out after reading Scott’s blog and me and Kolin’s Twitter posts. It seemed after sirmalloc joined our group that the night went by a lot faster. All night we talked about the iPhone SDK, played with new apps, and talked about ways to implement what we wanted in the iPhone such as copy/paste, MMS and access to Bluetooth API’s.

Finally the sun started to rise and we prepared ourselves to enter the mall promptly at 7AM.

(will continue tomorrow with photos, feel free to check out our twitter posts through the night)